Key West Artists

“Artists in Season”
Features Two Key West Artists

The Key West Art and Historical Society’s Custom House galleries will feature the works of two of Key West’s talented young artists, Letty Nowak and Sharon McGauley, with a grand opening reception on Thursday, April 6, 5:30-7 p.m. The show runs through June 2.

Nowak, co-owner of the Lemonade Stand Art Studio in Bahama Village with McGauley, is best known for her distinctive portraits of Key West’s famous and infamous characters. In 2004, “Faces of Key West,” a book of her portraits, was published.

Nowak moved to Key West in 2000, after graduating from Michigan State with a bachelor of fine arts degree in graphic design and painting. She began her portrait series soon after arriving in Key West, because she found something special in many of the faces she saw, Nowak said.

“I wanted to paint those unique faces of the people I met in Key West, because I wanted to capture the personality I saw in them,” she said.

Nowak paints in oils on small canvases, 10-inches-by-10-inches, and some canvases as large as 6-foot-by-61/2-foot.

“I like the larger size,” she said while adding final touches to a large canvas portrait. “I have a lot of new portraits here.”

Here is an old barbershop she rented in Bahama Village to work in privacy, so she could paint undisturbed 10-14 hours a day for the upcoming show.

“No one has seen any of these works,” Nowak, a petite blonde with blue-green eyes and a lot of bottled up energy, smiled naturally as she moved a finished portrait off the easel. Pointing to a large canvas off to the side, she said, “No one has seen this full-body painting before, either.”

Her new works include a number of full body paintings, as well as new portraits.

A local collector bought 100 of her earlier portraits, after “Faces of Key West” came out, she said. Some of the collector’s portraits will be included in the show.

“This is the biggest show of my life,” Nowak said as she lifted an almost finished portrait of Pat Croce onto the easel, the last of her paintings for the show. “To be shown at the Custom House was a goal I set for myself when I can to Key West. This means the world to me.”

Nowak and McGauley met while attending local gallery shows and artist events on the island. In 2000, while having lunch at Blue Heaven, a for rent sign went up on an old air-conditioning warehouse across from the restaurant. The space was perfect for the studio they both imagined and they moved in, in October.

“We fixed the place up on a just-out-of-school budget,” she recalled while mixing paint on an improvised glass palette that held jars filled with well-used brushes, squeezed paint tubes, and a colorfully paint-flecked drop cloth. “Soon we realized the possibility of turning the studio into a gallery as well.”

The Lemonade Stand Art Studio opened in January 2001, and Nowak can still be found painting one of her commissioned portraits in the studio. Her bold, contemporary portraits are filled with the warm light of Key West.

Sharon McGauley came to Key West fresh from Connecticut College with a degree in science, and a minor in art. She used her science degree to teach marine biology at Seacamp and this allowed her to live by the ocean and open sky she loves to paint.

“Art is my primary focus in life,” she said.

Key West helped McGauley discover an ability to work in oil paints.

“I never painted in oils before coming to Key West,” McGauley said. “It appeals to me, because the paintings that move me are in oils.”

McGauley agrees with Nowak, that the two hit it off after meeting at different gallery events in Key West and opening the studio was a positive move in their lives.

McGauley painted every day at the Lemonade Stand and then decided she needed to see some different land and seascapes; she has spent the last year painting in Maui, and talks in excited tones about returning home with her new works.

“The show means a lot to me,” she said. “It feels like the next big step up from local galleries. The Custom House is a beautiful and reputable museum and it is wonderful to have the recognition that comes with the show.”

McGauley will bring many new paintings to Key West for the show. The new paintings, she said, will be either 3-feet-by-3-feet or 31/2-feet-by 5-feet.

“I am a little nervous,” she admitted, “because no one has seen them.”

Reflecting on Key West, she said, “I am very thankful I learned to be an artist in Key West, the community is so supportive.”

For more information, go to www.kwahs.org; www.LettyNowak.com; www.SharonMcGauley.com.